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Former President Donald Trump is on trial in New York for a $250 million civil case that may jeopardize his personal riches and real estate company, which helped drive him to the White House.
New York Attorney General Letitia James accuses Trump, his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and other top Trump Organisation executives of a decade-long scheme in which they used “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate Trump’s net worth to obtain better loan terms. The trial comes after the judge found in a partial summary judgmen that Trump had provided “fraudulent valuations” for his assets, leaving the trial to determine additional proceedings and what penalties, if any, the defendants will face.
Judge receives bomb threat before closing arguments
A bomb threat was sent to Judge Arthur Engoron’s home in New York this morning, just hours before closing arguments in Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial, according to a court spokesman.
In light of the threat, the court has increased the judge’s protection, according to a court official.
Nassau County Police bomb technicians came to Engoron’s residence with extreme care. Nassau County Police alerted the judicial system about the threat.
Today’s court hearings are anticipated to go as scheduled.
Trump to attend court, intends to deliver closing remarks.
Donald Trump is scheduled to attend his civil fraud trial today, where he expects to participate in the defense’s closing statement, despite Judge Arthur Engoron’s rejection of that motion yesterday.
The former president denied yesterday night that spending time in court is affecting his campaign ahead of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries.
“No — we’re leading by record numbers,” Trump told ABC News.
The defense team’s closings are set from 10:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. ET, while the state’s closing is slated from 2:15 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET.
The defence intends to utilise the most of its permitted time, while the attorney general’s office has indicated that their closing statement would be around one hour, according to correspondence published on the court’s docket yesterday.
Trump still intends to give his final argument Thursday.
Donald Trump plans to make a portion of the final argument at his civil fraud trial on Thursday, according to social media posts.
Trump’s remark comes after Judge Arthur Engoron called his plan into question early Wednesday by sharing an email exchange in which Trump’s attorneys refused to adhere to the conditions Engoron established for Trump’s closure.
Trump described Engoron’s decision as “mean & nasty,” and stated in a social media post that he still “would like to personally do the closing argument.”
Trump’s final statement is in jeopardy following a heated email conversation.
Former President Donald Trump’s intention to deliver a portion of his closing argument on Thursday, as reported by ABC News yesterday, has been called into question when he failed to make a deadline to agree to Judge Arthur Engoron’s constraints.
According to an email exchange between Engonon and defence counsel posted to the public docket Wednesday, Engonon stated that Trump would be required to follow the case’s limited gag order and would not be permitted to “impugn” the New York attorney general or her staff — limitations that Trump attorney Chris Kise rejected as “untenable.”
“The limitations I am imposing, in my absolute discretion, are not subject to further debate. Take it or leave it,” Engoron replied on Jan. 9, according to the email thread.
When Trump’s lawyers missed the first deadline set by Engoron, the judge determined that Trump could not testify. Kise then responded that he did not see the deadline and requested that the closing arguments be postponed because of the death of Melania Trump’s mother on Tuesday.
“I am sad to inform the Court that Mrs. Trump’s mother died this evening. Because of the difficulties posed by this profoundly personal family situation, President Trump has asked that I seek that the Court postpone the date for closing arguments,” Kise wrote yesterday.
Engoron swiftly refused the motion and stated that the closures will proceed as scheduled.
“Overall, moving forward makes the most sense. Engoron wrote, “Please tell Mr. Trump that I apologise.”
Kise notified Engoron that Trump was still planning to attend the closings and speak.
“Despite the fact that his mother-in-law, whom he was very close to, died late last night, President Trump will speak tomorrow,” Kise said in an email this morning.
When Engoron requested confirmation that Trump had agreed to his conditions, Kise responded, saying, “You are not allowing President Trump, who has been wrongfully demeaned and belittled by an out of control, politically motivated Attorney General, to speak about the things that must be spoken about.”
“I will not dispute this again. Take or leave it. Now or never. You have till noon, seven minutes from now. “I WILL NOT GRANTS ANY MORE EXTENSIONS,” Engoron responded at 11:54 a.m.
After Kise did not react, Engoron contacted him at 12:12 p.m., stating that he anticipated Trump would not speak and that their email discussion would be put on the court’s public docket.
In response to the announcement, Trump’s legal spokeswoman, Alina Habba, told ABC News, “Is anyone surprised anymore?”
Trump aims to give some of closure himself, according to sources.
Former President Trump plans to personally give part of the defense’s final argument at the end of his civil fraud trial in New York on Thursday, according to individuals familiar with his preparation.
The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, his two oldest sons, and two former Trump Organisation executives — are represented by three major lawyers: Christopher Kise, Clifford Robert, and Alina Habba. However, insiders say Trump is determined to deliver a piece of the final remarks.
According to the sources, the defense’s closing argument preparations are still being worked out.
The Manhattan courtroom where the trial has been held for the first 11 weeks is currently being used for another high-profile trial involving the New York attorney general’s case against the National Rifle Association, and the judge in that case informed jurors that the trial would be temporarily relocated to a different courtroom this week to accommodate Trump’s civil trial.
NY AG wants $370 million fine, NY real estate ban against Trump.
In a written brief filed a week before the trial’s closing arguments, New York Attorney General Letitia James requested that the judge fine Trump over $370 million to disgorge profits from what she claims is a decade of fraudulent business conduct, as well as bar Trump from participating in the New York real estate industry for life.
The proposal for a $370 million fine, plus 9% annual interest, is a significant escalation from James’ first request for disgorgement of around $250 million.
The Trump Organisation received commercial loans using allegedly falsified financial statements, which account for the majority of the sought penalties. Based on expert testimony, James said that Trump cost his lenders $168,040,168, which the banks would have earned if Trump had been granted the right interest rate based on the true worth of his assets.
In their defence filing, Trump’s lawyers called the attorney general’s disgorgement theory “fundamentally flawed,” saying that “No lenders testified that they would have done anything differently had they known about Trump’s misstatements, and James attempted to fill that evidentiary void with expert testimony,” according to Trump’s lawyers.
Trump’s attorneys also stated that even if the attorney general showed that part of Trump’s profits were obtained illegally, they do not have the jurisdiction to compel disgorgement under New York Executive Law 63(12).
Closing arguments in the trial are set on January 11.
In a stinging opinion, the court denied Trump’s plea for directed verdict.
Judge Arthur Engoron has refused Donald Trump’s latest petition for a directed judgement to conclude his civil fraud trial.
In a stinging verdict, the judge not only dismissed the request but also chose to describe the errors he saw in several of Trump’s claims during the trial.
In response to the evidence of defence accounting expert Eli Bartov, who Trump proudly and again stated discovered “no accounting fraud of any kind,” Engoron categorically ignored Bartov’s conclusions, claiming he lost credibility by “doggedly attempting to justify every misstatement.”
“Bartov is a tenured professor, but all that his testimony proves is that for a million or so dollars, some experts will say whatever you want them to say,” he said.
The court also dismissed Trump’s lawyers’ claims that any financial misstatements were outside the case’s statute of limitations.
“Closing is not an excuse for future misstatements. §63(12) only needs a false statement used in business, and the financial statements in question satisfy that description well. Engoron wrote.
Engoron also stated that he did not believe Trump’s claim that fining the former president for ill-gotten profits was not justified in this case because his lenders were satisfied with the transactions.
“That the instant lenders made millions of dollars and were happy with the transactions does not mean that they were not damaged by lending at lower interest rates than they otherwise would have,” he stated in the letter.
Engoron described Trump’s assertions as “misstatements at best and fraud at worst,” stating that “Valuations, as expounded ad nauseum in this trial, can be based on different criteria analysed in different ways. But a lie is a lie.”
The court concluded his judgement by reminding the parties of the case’s final arguments, which are presently scheduled for January 11.
Trump’s case does not age well, according to a lawyer for the New York Attorney General.
In a letter, Judge Arthur Engoron, a lawyer for the New York Attorney General, stated that Donald Trump’s most recent request for a directed verdict in the case is nothing more than a “political stunt designed to provide Mr. Trump, his co-defendants, and their counsel with sound bites for press conferences, Truth Social posts, and cable news appearances.”
On Friday, Trump’s attorneys filed their sixth application for a directed verdict to stop the case due to a lack of evidence, which Engoron previously stated he was almost certain to refuse. The court has denied all four of Trump’s prior pleas for a directed verdict.
“Unlike a fine Bordeaux, Defendants’ case for a directed verdict does not improve with age,” state attorney Andrew Amer said in his Monday letter to the judge.
Amer also contended that Trump’s request was not justified based on the facts provided at trial, stating, “Nor does any of the testimony from the most ineffective team of experts that Defendants’ money can buy change the analysis.”
“Defendants are once again ‘whistling past the graveyard’ by relying on arguments the Court has already rejected,” Amer stated, referring to Engoron’s pretrial partial summary judgement finding, in which he determined that Trump used deceptive representations to conduct business.
Trump submits a fifth request for directed verdict.
Donald Trump’s attorneys filed their sixth application for a directed verdict in the former president’s fraud trial late Friday, and it looks that it will be denied.
When Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise revealed his intention to make the move to halt the trial earlier this week, Judge Arthur Engoron all but assured he would refuse it.
“There is no way I am going to grant that,” Engoron said on Tuesday. “You’d be wasting your time.”
Trump’s attorneys, however, submitted their request late Friday.
“In sum, there was no fraud, there were no victims, there has simply been no harm or actionable misconduct, and the Court must and should follow the law of the case regarding the scope of the claims at issue,” Trump’s attorneys stated in their brief.
In the filing, Trump’s attorneys criticised New York Attorney General Letitia James’ request to fine him nearly $400 million for ill-gotten gains, claiming that the state failed to show that Trump and his sons intended to defraud his lenders or conspired to commit fraud.
“Not a single defence witness supported the notion of any alleged conspiracy, and in fact such testimony refuted fully the existence of the same,” the attorneys said, labelling Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who testified about the supposed plot, a “demonstrable, perpetual, and serial liar.”
They also said that James failed to demonstrate that any of Trump’s claimed misrepresentations would have significantly altered the loans he got from his lenders, claiming that the alleged misstatements had “no actual significance” to Trump’s creditors.
Judge Engoron denied all four of Trump’s earlier applications for a directed judgement to conclude the case due to a lack of evidence.
Trump files notice that he plans to appeal the gag order judgement.
Donald Trump wants New York’s highest court to rule on the limited gag order in his civil fraud trial, according to a new petition Friday afternoon.
The Appellate Division of New York dismissed Trump’s previous petition on Thursday, ruling that he took the wrong legal route to challenge the limited gag order, which prohibits him from commenting about Judge Arthur Engoron’s staff.
Trump’s attorneys submitted a notice of appeal on Friday, stating that they want to challenge the ruling to the Albany-based Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court.
It’s uncertain whether the Court of Appeals will hear the request because Trump already lost a bid for leave to challenge the gag order.
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